


Cry for Yesterday

by athousandwinds



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan finds it hard to cope with normal life. Lucy just doesn't want to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cry for Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [googlebrat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=googlebrat).



> Thank you to Jessat Blue for the beta and her support. :D

"I wish it would snow," Lucy said. She was sitting on the ottoman, her legs curled up beneath her, and was staring out of the frosted window. "It's cold enough, surely. Why won't it snow?"

"You don't want snow _now_ ," Susan said, sounding a little cross. "It's too early, it'll melt and we'll just end up with a terrible lot of slush."

"I don't care; I want snow."

"You would care if you had to deal with the thaw," Edmund said sourly.

"Well, none of us have to do that now," Lucy said peevishly. She pressed her nose against the glass, but pulled back swiftly and rubbed it for warmth. "It won't be Christmas if it doesn't snow."

"It's Christmas when it doesn't," Susan said, smiling suddenly. Her face, which had been developing (Mother said) into a rather sulky kind of beauty, was lit up so brilliantly that Lucy almost sighed enviously. It would be nice to look like Susan, especially when one didn't have archery and politics and banquets for distraction. Being a Queen was better than being beautiful, but it was hard not to be either.

"Where's Peter?" Lucy asked, after a few moments of silence where no one could quite bring themselves to say anything.

"He's out with Mother," Susan said. "Oh, Ed, _don't_ laugh. It's not kind."

"I can't help it." Edmund was still sniggering and thumping the rug with a closed fist. "It's that ghastly friend of hers, the one with the daughter."

"I always forget," Susan said, sounding slightly distressed, "that Mother and Father don't know all the things we do. I mean, Peter is too hard-working to have much time for girls, even in - well."

"He _was_ too hard-working," Edmund said, sobering. "One's School Cert isn't exactly the same as running a kingdom."

"That's true," Susan agreed, not that this lessened her perturbation. "Still, there are so many things - they don't realise how clever you are, Lucy, or - or - they won't let me learn archery, you know. I don't even know if I would be good at it here."

"You're a wonderful tennis player, Su," Edmund offered, by way of consolation.

"Oh, yes, and much use _that_ is to anyone," she said with unaccustomed bitterness.

"It's the same sort of thing," Edmund retorted.

"What is?"

Edmund rolled over on the rug to give Peter an awkward version of a bow. Lucy half rose and then sank back down onto the ottoman. Susan, who had always been the most deferential of them all, stood up and inclined her head.

"And that's another thing," she said when Peter had accepted their greetings and sat down on the sofa. "They don't understand why we've all suddenly become so polite."

"Don't stop on my account," Peter said. "I don't mind at all."

"You get used to it, don't you?" Edmund said, shrugging his shoulders. "You address everyone as Milord and Milady for years and then it seems wrong _not_ to say it."

"One can get used to anything," Lucy said. Her voice was so odd that Susan got up again solely to put her arms around her. "Only I can't, now, perhaps it's just that I'm old and set in my ways - "

"Lu," Peter began. He looked extremely uncomfortable.

" - but I don't feel old at all. Don't any of you feel like that? I don't care if you don't; tell me you do," and Lucy was crying now; great, choking sobs that made her body shake violently. Susan cuddled her and kissed her hair, until Lucy pushed her away so hard that she almost fell off the ottoman. Peter jumped up, snatching at Lucy's small arm, but Edmund stayed where he was on the floor, his eyes gone dull and terribly sad.

"Apologise to Su _right now_."

"I won't, I won't, you're not my king any more - " Lucy wrenched her arm out of Peter's grip and ran, stumbling, for the door. Peter started after her, but Edmund caught him by the cloth of his trouser-leg and Susan herself reached out.

"She's just upset, Peter, she didn't mean it."

"Yes, she did," Peter said shortly, but he was equally upset and meant it just as little. Susan turned her sisterhood to good account by exerting herself to soothe him; between the two of them, they managed to produce smiles for their parents later in the evening. Meanwhile, Edmund had left the room in search of Lucy.

She was in her room, which she shared with Susan, but she had locked the door. Edmund knocked; a tight, smart rap that he had learnt years ago had twice as good an effect as heavy thumping. Not that this information was likely to do him any good here, he reflected. It was, in a way, exactly the sort of thing Lucy was complaining about.

"I don't want to talk to anyone, Ed," came Lucy's whisper. It sounded like she was just on the other side; too miserable to do any more running, she must have simply locked the door and slid down it. Edmund followed her example.

"I didn't want to, either," he said as honestly as he could. "I had to, though, otherwise I would've gone mad."

"It's so much more difficult here," Lucy whispered. "Who did you speak to?"

"Professor Kirke."

"I would have told Mr Tumnus in Narnia. Or Aravis, or - oh, I could talk to Susan there, too. But here - "

"She and Peter are so much older here," Edmund agreed, letting his head fall back against the door. "I don't like it."

"Neither do I." Lucy's voice was barely audible. "I don't like it _here_ at all."

"Growing up is supposed to hurt..." Edmund trailed off at Lucy's snort. "Look, think of Narnia as - as a sort of test run for real life. I think that's how we're meant to do it."

"Wasn't _Narnia_ real enough? I cried and I laughed and - and I loved people. And people _died_ there, wasn't that real?"

"Don't be stupid, Lu." Edmund closed his eyes. "Of course it was real. It just - it's not so bad, that way."

"I'd rather have it be so bad and _have_ it, if that's all right with you."

"It was just a suggestion, Lu." Edmund sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. "I was trying to help."

"You're not."

"Thanks."

He heard Lucy expel a breath of air and a moment later came the remorse. "Oh, Ed, I shouldn't have said that."

"Don't worry about it."

"Really, I _shouldn't_ have."

"I said it was all right. I'm not Su, you know, I'm tougher than that."

"She's not wrong, though." Edmund heard the soft scratch of Lucy's hair against the wood. "It's not _fair_. All the things we could do, in Narnia - "

"No," said Edmund. "No, it's not fair."

"I can't stand it here."

"Neither can I."

"Do you think we can find Aslan, in this world? Then we could ask him to send us back."

"I don't know if he would," Edmund said slowly. "I meant what I said about the - the test run, you know. I think it was to - to let us see the people we could become, if we were steady and honest and true and all those things one reads about in books."

In his mind's eye, he could see the look on Lucy's face: the exhausted dejection and disbelief.

"It's the only thing I can think of," he explained, "why Aslan might show us that and then - then take it away."

"Yes," Lucy said thoughtfully. "Because you were on your way to being an absolute fright, you know."

"Shut up," Edmund told her with all the authority he could muster. Lucy giggled. It was a weak attempt at it and would've been marked down by any judge, but he smiled. "Are you going to be all right?"

The door gave way behind him with a click and he felt Lucy's warm weight against him instead; her wet, tearstained cheek pressed against his. He squeezed her arm and it tightened around his neck, almost choking him. He said nothing; her breath was still hitching horribly. They stayed like that for some minutes, finding some much-needed equilibrium.

Then the gong went for dinner.

"You'd best apologise to Su, you know," Edmund said quietly. "It's not that I think she'll still be angry, but - we all feel as badly as you do. She'd like it."

"I know," Lucy whispered, but she didn't move for another moment. When she finally relaxed her grip, Edmund took her hand and they went down together.

"I'm sorry," Lucy hissed at Susan, before their parents joined them.

Susan shook her head, her eyes downcast. Peter gave her a sharp look. "Don't, Lucy, it was my fault. I won't talk about Narnia any more."

"No," said Lucy half-angrily, "that's not what I - "

"It's better this way," Susan said, looking up quite suddenly. She was smiling with self-conscious bravery, the way nurses did in films about the war. "If something hurts, it's better to get rid of it and live one's life without it."

"You don't _mean_ that," Lucy said, and for one awful moment Peter thought she was going to start crying again. "You can't think of Narnia like that."

"I don't," Susan said, the courage swiftly dying out of her face. "But isn't it better to think like that than to brood over it all? I don't like myself when I do that."

"When you do what, dear?" Mother asked, sweeping into her seat. Lucy shut her mouth with an audible clack of teeth; Edmund's hand found hers again under the tablecloth.

"My hair," Susan said, without missing a beat. "It's so old-fashioned to have it up like this, Mother. I want it shingled."

"Susan," Mother said with a sigh, "your hair is so beautiful. Don't spoil it."

Peter changed the subject. Susan looked over at Lucy, her eyes sad.

"If you need me, Lu," she said later, when they were alone in their room. "You should know I'll always listen to you."

Lucy shifted on her bed; Susan could hear the springs creaking.

"Even if it hurts, it's better than forgetting who we were," she said, her voice muffled by her pillow.

"I don't know." Susan stared up at the ceiling, though it was too dark to see. "It's harder for me than it is for you, Lucy. You didn't - you haven't - "

"I was just as much an adult as you were," Lucy said fiercely. Susan could imagine her, golden hair spread out over the pillow like - well, like a lion's mane.

"Yes, you were," she said in a low voice. From Lucy's expulsion of breath, Susan knew that she counted this a victory. But -

Lucy had her whole life to live over again, if needs be, knowing that she could be passionate and powerful and - all the things Susan had so admired in her the first time around. Lucy, this young, had no idea of what she could or couldn't do, because no one had said "no" to Queen Lucy the Valiant and no one would say "no" to the baby of the family, either. But to the responsible one, to Susan -

"Don't do that, you'll set a bad example."

All the time, she thought. And here one could never go riding alone, never wander the streets of a city after midnight, never -

If one was born captive, she reasoned, it was best to forget the taste of freedom. It was not the sort of thing she could explain to Lucy, even if she had the words.

On the other side of the room, Lucy sighed. Susan wanted to comfort her again, but she knew now that it would be of no use.

The only thing any of them could do was wait until morning, and resurrection.


End file.
